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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

ANNA

S lowly, my eyes opened, and my stomach roiled like a ship caught in a storm. I was so drowsy and so out of it that all I could do was jerk my head to the side and vomit on the concrete floor where I sat. After retching a few times, I lifted my head and rested my skull back against the wall behind me. My eyes drifted closed again, and I let out a pained moan.

“God, you’re pathetic,” a voice spat. “Fuck knows what he sees in you. What kind of MC president wants a weak-ass bitch for an ol’ lady? It doesn’t make sense.”

I could tell it was a woman speaking, but the voice was distorted. Something about it seemed familiar, though the rushing inside my ears made it hard for me to think straight, so I couldn’t place it.

I tried to open my eyes, but my head ached so badly that I had to squeeze them shut again. Even the waning sunlight shining through the windows felt like laser beams burning my retinas.

My heart was thudding so hard I could hear it pounding in my ears. My breathing turned shallow, and I began to fight for my breath.

Back when Hendrix and I broke up, I started to suffer from small panic attacks. The doctor explained that my emotions were so heightened they needed to come out somehow. He taught me breathing techniques and mind-calming exercises. Over time, I learned to control them, but at that moment, my head was so muddled that I couldn’t form a coherent thought.

I breathed slowly through my nose and out my mouth, over and again, until my heart rate eventually began to slow. But the panic was still there in the periphery of my mind, threatening to envelop me.

Everything was hard and cold, from the floor I was sitting on, to the wall behind my back. I couldn’t feel any heat source, even from the window.

The room smelled musty, like old furniture that hadn’t been used for years. My eyes cracked open to slits, but the world seemed tilted, like it had been rocked on its axis, and the room spun, making me nauseous again.

I tried to think back to how I got here. I remembered talking to Carina in the bar and then Tweety offering to come for a walk with me.

That was the moment everything came rushing back. The gun, the garage, the threats, the cloth over my face.

Oh my God, I thought. He drugged me. Tweety drugged me.

My hand went to my stomach and rested there. I tried to concentrate on the baby’s movements.

All I’d done in recent weeks was complain about how hard my son kicked, but right then, I would have done anything to feel that magic moving inside me.

Tears filled my eyes. Please kick, my inner voice implored. Please, sweetheart. Move .

But I couldn’t feel anything.

My ears pricked up at the sound of a door creaking, and two voices, one male and one female, filtered in from what appeared to be another room.

“We need to get rid of her now,” a deep voice said.

“Baby, we can’t do it here. They’ll find DNA evidence and link us to the murder. We have to wait until it’s safe to move her. We’ll take her to a deserted part of the river and shoot her there. Then, we can weigh her body down. She’ll sink to the bottom if we tie enough rocks to her bitch ass.”

The deep voice rose with a thread of panic. “The town’s fucking crawling with undercover Feds and bikers. We need to get outta here.”

“Stop worrying, Justin baby,” the other voice said soothingly. “You’re so tense. You need me to help you relax? I know how much you like my special brand of stress relief.”

Bile rose through my chest again, and I leaned my head to the side, fighting back the urge to be sick. Jesus. I needed to get out of this place. I had to pull myself together.

Slowly, I opened my eyes again. The light had dimmed. Time was marching on while I sat here, waiting to fucking die like some kind of wounded animal.

Footsteps tapped on the concrete, and the voices got louder as they entered the room.

“I’m going out to find another car,” Tweety said.

“Ace will bring us one,” the female protested. “He won’t let us down.”

“Fuck Ace,” Tweety grumbled. “You keep saying he’s gonna help us, but I don’t see him beating down the door to save our asses. The car’s fucked, and we need transportation. I’ll go out on foot, hotwire the first vehicle I see, and haul ass back. If we sit here much longer, they’ll find us.”

The woman had her back to me, and she was in shadow, but I could see she wore a baseball cap, and had long dark hair tied in a low ponytail at her nape, which had been threaded through the fastening of her headwear.

There was something familiar about her.

I tried to keep my breathing regulated. Playing dead seemed like the smartest thing to do. Maybe I could lull them into a false sense of security until I got an opportunity to escape.

Except the thought of moving seemed like an impossibility. My head had cleared slightly, but my body ached all over to the point where it hurt to blink, let alone run. Every time I even flexed a muscle, I felt the need to vomit. My back hurt like a bitch, and I had to stop myself from crying out at the sharp aches shooting through my kidneys.

“I’ll tie her up before I go,” Tweety offered.

The girl laughed. “She’s no threat to me, but go ahead.”

Tweety grabbed my hands and bound them with a zip tie. I made my entire body relax and I breathed deeply because I didn’t know what else to do.

Suddenly, I wished I’d paid more attention during the self-defense classes I used to go to with my friends back in Hambleton. They were run by my friend, Sophie, who was kick ass. She wouldn’t have let herself get dragged into this shit show. Soph would have had these assholes strung up the second she awoke.

Her voice suddenly echoed through my head.

Eyes, solar plexus, genitals, toes. Headbutt, stamp, slap, and chop. Remember, fingers stabbed into an eyeball will give you a chance to escape. If they can’t see you, they can’t catch you. Pull that eyeball out of the socket if you have to, but remember, a rock or dirt thrown in it can be just as effective. No-holds-barred, bite, scratch, fight dirty. A boot to the balls or vagina will render somebody helpless and allow you to get away, try to get underneath near the perineum. That will take a giant down.

I pushed my friend's advice to the back of my mind, ready to call on it when needed.

The sound of a door opening made me jerk slightly. I heard a hushed goodbye and the sounds of kissing. After a few seconds, the door closed, and silence fell over the room before boots tapped on the concrete, coming toward me.

I’d gone from not being able to think straight to my senses suddenly feeling heightened.

The steps stopped directly in front of me, and I felt breath on my cheek. Then, a soft voice sang, “Aaaannaaa.”

My eyes flew open, landing directly on hers, and my sharp intake of breath was audible as it hissed through the room.

She smiled brightly. “Thought you were awake. You’re a shitty actress as well as a shitty lay. I mean, that’s gotta be a reason Hendrix left you and came to me, right?”

My heart sank inside my chest.

I hadn’t recognized her because she looked so different. The last time I saw her was when Hendrix was dragging her out of the clubhouse. Then she had red hair, just a shade darker than mine.

A hand came to her ponytail, and she tweaked it. “Like it?”

Saliva filled my mouth.

“This is my natural color,” Daisy stated. “I was experimenting with red when I first joined the club, and then Hendrix made me dye it the same color as yours.” She sneered and leaned in closer until her lips were a hairsbreadth away from mine. “At least I don’t have to look at that awful ginger anymore. It never did suit my skin tone.”

“They’ll be looking for me,” I croaked. “Just go. Leave now, and I’ll tell them I wandered here myself, got injured, and holed up to wait it out. That way, you’ll get to live.”

Her maniacal laugh was brittle.

I stared into her soulless eyes, fighting the urge to vomit again, and whispered, “What do you want from me?”

She dropped to the ground in front of me and crossed her legs languidly. “Hendrix was mine for three years. Then you and your bastard came along, and everything changed. He stopped touching me. He stopped speaking to me”—her voice lowered to a demonic rasp—“he wouldn’t even look at me.”

I shook my head, not quite believing what I was hearing. “He used you, Daisy. I’m sorry, but you’re better off without him. Take the win because any man who treats you that way isn’t worth your love.”

Her cheeks heated red, and she screamed, “I know that!”

“So why all this?” I implored. “Why hurt me?”

“To make him feel what he made me feel,” she raged, her cheeks darkening. “He hurt me, so I’ll hurt him, and the best way to do that is by hurting you !” Slowly, she rose and stood to her full height. “He humiliated me. He gave me something, he made me feel like somebody, and then he took it all away”—she lifted a hand and snapped her fingers—“just like that.”

“I’m sorry,” I breathed, smiling wryly through my pain. “I know what it feels like to be hurt by Hendrix.”

“Yet here you are,” she spat. “That asshole treated you like dirt, but you still came running back for more. You’re a fucking idiot. At least I’m getting revenge and not rolling over, begging for scraps.”

“You may be right,” I muttered. “But Hendrix showed me that he’s changed. He puts me first, and even though I married somebody else and I’m pregnant, he never stopped loving me.” I paused to get my breath before continuing. “Hendrix fucked up, but fuck-ups can be forgiven as long as a lesson’s learned. I’m willing to try because I’ve seen glimpses of the man he can be, and I think he’s worth the risk.”

“You’re a fool,” she hissed.

“I’m sorry for what he did to you,” I murmured.

“You’re an idiot. A stupid bitch,” she snapped.

“I’m sorry for you.”

Daisy let out a pained cry, then made a fist, pulled her arm back, and swung.

A burst of pain ricocheted through my temple, and a thwacking sound rang out as she punched me again.

I moaned as burning pain razed through my eardrum. Bringing my hands up, I cried out while covering my head with my hands, trying to protect myself as best I could from the flurry of punches.

Thwack.

Thwack.

A metallic taste of blood filled my mouth, and an unbearable pain blazed through my torso. A feeling of dread washed through me as I realized she’d kicked my back.

My baby .

Another wave of sickness hit me, and I fell onto my side and began to vomit again where I lay, unable to even lift my head.

That was when it hit me.

This was it.

Nobody was going to find me.

There’d be no knight on a silver steed riding in to rescue me.

Me and my boy were likely going to die.

A part of me just hoped she’d make it quick.